Awesome! Again detrained, first cardio activity since ski trip ( 3 weeks ago ), only second run of the year. Wasn't even going max, it was close to max but it was consciously buffered the whole time. Even in the end that i picked up the tempo, i deliberately kept it from max. Id say it was 90%-95%. Very happy about this, ~28 minutes was my PR when i dropped the ~25' race , so throwing an easy random 29 out of nowhere makes me optimistic about going (well) below 25 before summer.

FRONT SQUAT:8@20kg8@30kg8@40kg5@50kgATG BACK SQUAT:10@40kg10@50kg5@60kg-So i tried front squats that are supposedly better for back. They were much more upright, alright, but i felt more tension in my back.Then i decided its been long enough to try full squats again. Win, they were very solid and with no bugging/stress at all.Alright, im back at them, will slowly and carefully progress them, but im back.

DB LUNGE:8 each leg @ 16kg each hand8 each leg @ 16kg each hand8 each leg @ 16kg each hand-Nice, legs were dead from the big volume of squatting tryouts but still got them well.

SEATED NEUTRAL GRIP DB OHP:10@20kg each hand10@20kg each hand10@20kg each hand10@20kg each hand-Strong and solid.

Some bad news:Thought the spring major running event ( similar to the one i did in Autumn ) was end of April, it is 14 April and the registration is over. FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUIm probably running a small 5K event this Sunday but not prepared at all for it.So unless i find other events, it will be just a personal battle until October. FML.Goals until end of July : 25-ish 5K at my course ( which reflects to ~23-ish race ) - sub-hour 10K - 4'30'' 1km split.

Awesomeness again. Was too sore at hamstrings and abs, so chose to go just a click faster than comfortable. That landed around 6'/km which is amazing for me. Looks like there is some strong memory in running, much stronger than weights. Picked up the pace at 5th km ( but not even close to max ) to just prove myself i can break 30mins 5km at will now, which happened indeed. Even 6th km which was supposedly done 'slow-ish' was still 6'15''.Lets see how this goes this year, very interesting so far.

Thought the spring major running event ( similar to the one i did in Autumn ) was end of April, it is 14 April and the registration is over. FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

ahhh that sux.

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Im probably running a small 5K event this Sunday but not prepared at all for it.So unless i find other events, it will be just a personal battle until October. FML.Goals until end of July : 25-ish 5K at my course ( which reflects to ~23-ish race ) - sub-hour 10K - 4'30'' 1km split.

^^^ Race was yesterday ( Sunday ), AM, about 20 hours after this last logged workout. Squats & easy long bike worked. Hamstrings were fine. Not sure about quads, they felt fine, they got fried during the event but still not sure how much of that was from the squatting and how much from the event itself, read log and see graph below:

That was one weird course. First of all, who designs a 5K race to be 4.5km? Besides that, it had a lot of downhill ( which i knew ), but also some serious uphill parts.First 400-500m was uphill, for a total rise of 30-40m. Didn't know that. I was at around 5'20''/km at the beginning, too fast, slowed down to around 6'/km to reach around 5'50'' average on top. Then until ~3km it was mostly downhill ( only a small 100-200m uphill section but not too steep ). I was doing those downhill parts at 4:5x ( PR level ).A little after 3K there was this 100-200m steep uphill part ( 20m rise or more in 100-200m ). That was a killer.Then the remaining, around 1km, was intense downhill ( 50m + drop ). Logged a couple of PRs there, last 500m @ 4'47'' pace , max pace 4'25''.Overall weird, didn't know how to handle those long downhills. I ended up kinda braking. Now ( next day ) shins are destroyed, very sore glutes and abs too.I imagine i should have opened the stride length and try to float fast through the downhill sections, tried it but couldn't make it, felt i was going too fast to handle.You can see the 3 uphills clearly at the graph below ( and their impact on speed ). Looks like a struggle, building up speed a downhills, hitting a wall at uphills, restart lol.

Was fun overall. If i get more experienced in handling downhill i might record some serious PRs there next year. Rare chance to record a sub 20 'official 5K race time' even if it's 4,5 actually, lol

I know how you feel with the race distance getting messed up. My best '5K' was sub-20 (~18m35s or so), but the course was 300m short. I'm sure I could have still slipped under but I'll never know...

From my n=1 cross-country experience (and when I did hill training for sprints), as adarq said^, the middle ground is where you want to be for downhill: too much braking and my knees/quads got sore, and as downhill running is overspeed running, running too fast will wreck your hamstrings in a way you probably don't want for a long XC run. For short uphill stretches(~200-400m), I found it was actually less painful (and probably less calories burnt perhaps) to accelerate up the hill hard and maintain that momentum for as long as possible to get over it faster, than just running my regular pace, if that makes sense. I always saved up my bursts for the start of the hills, and then mostly free-wheeled on the downhill.